Meet Dusti Joyner: Visual Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Dusti Joyner and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Dusti, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
I have been a maker my whole life and I realized early on, that I couldn’t NOT create. Thats when I decided that I had to turn it into a career somehow. 

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My work is a bridge between sculpture and painting. I use thick acrylic paint and palette knives to create movement through light, shadows, and pattern. When I started painting again, I took about a year to figure out what I wanted to do. I began working with all the media I had learned in school when someone encouraged me to share my work online. At the time, I thought it was a crazy idea, but you know what? Social media really helped me find my voice. Something strange happens when you are not tied to only sharing great finished work. It becomes ok to try new things and fail! That is when I started experimenting with palette knives. I took baby steps at first, but once I committed to using as much paint as I wanted, my work began to evolve. I started thinking of it more like sculpture. I was really intrigued by the way light catches the 3D shapes and began considering the perspective of the viewer and the effects of different lighting on the canvas. I shared these experiments on my social media and it has built me an online community to bounce ideas off of and has encouraged my creative soul. My work is constantly evolving and am now working on larger surfaces. While this allows me to play with the size and strokes to create different textures, it also helps me slow down and connect with my paintings. I love the physical repetition of being forced to think about each and every stroke. I like to think of my art career as a journey of experiments, trials, mistakes, and successes. I want to share my journey through social media to maybe help others through their own creative processes and to spread a little joy in the process.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
We would hit up Old Bucs BBQ. Hands down best brisket in the area. Then we would head to Sawyer Yards and visit the art studios. It is such a fun place with tons of things to do!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My family has always been my biggest creative driver. They were super supportive and creative, it just came in the form of projects, builds, and productions. If you could think it up, our family could create it. We loved to sit down together and think of new projects. Still to this day I call them when I am stuck. They taught me to be inventive, to work hard, and most of all that it is ok to put in a whole lot of work just to bring someone a little joy. While my small town didn’t have museums or art galleries, we did have the Houston Rodeo. I thought it was so cool that someone from our school could be chosen as a winner in the big city. So when I was in the 4th grade I submitted an oil painting, won best of show, and I was hooked. I can honestly say that the HLSR is the reason I pursued an art career.

Website: https://dustijoyner.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dustijoyner/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dustijoynerfineart
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DustiJoyner
Other: Pinterest. https://www.pinterest.com/dustijoyner